Spring-filled packing



June 1943. c. T. RlPLEY ETAL ,320,706

SPRING-FILLED PACKING Filed March 8, 1941 Patented June 1, 1943 SPRING J'IILED PACKING Charles '1'. Ripley and Walter M. Gibbs, Chicago, Ill., assignors to Spring Packing Corporation, Chicago, 111., a corporation of Illinois Application March 8, 1941, Serial No. 382,375 8 Claims. (Cl. 308-243) Our invention relates to spring-filled packinga stranded capillary material such as waste with a multiplicity of springs embedded therein. This spring-filled packing is used especially for packing the journal boxes of railway rolling stock. The compression springs which are embedded within the waste perform the two-fold function of better keeping the waste pressed against the journal surfaces and holding the waste rather open so that it does not lose too much of its capillarity by becoming packed in hard lumps.

Our present invention constitutes an improvement over the spring-filled packingdisclosed in Ripley Patent No. 1,298,794, of April 1, 1919, and that disclosed in Ripley Patent No. 1,542,098, of June 16, 1925. This improvement involves in part an improvement in the shape 01' the springs themselves and in part in a new coaction between the improved spring and the waste.

In the Ripley Patent No. 1,298,794 the ends of the helically conformed open-lead spring-wire springs were cut oil without being turned back. This had the advantage that the spring ends would not become hooked together. In inserting the springs in the waste, the plain ends rather facilitated ready screwing oi the springs into a layer of waste, subject to the objection that the small barbs formed at the very ends of the wire as an incident to the cutting would tend to catch in the fibers of the strands or the waste. But the plain-ended springs of the type shown in this Ripley Patent No. 1,298,794 had serious objections. Chiei of them was the injury to the hands of workmen by the exposed ends of the wire in handling the packing. Another objection was that the springs were not very well anchored in the waste and could become separated from it too easily. The springs could readily be screwed into the waste to embed them; but they could also pull out too readily. It is desirable in springfllled waste that the springs should be sufliciently anchored to some immediate portion 01' the waste to the end that the springs will be maintained rather uniformly distributed throughout the waste despite extensive handling and manipulation. I The subsequent improvement disclosed in Ripley Patent No. 1,542,098 sought to remedy these two major objections by turning the ends of the springs inwardly to form V-shaped terminal hooks. These terminal hooks did not fully remedy the objections, and they created further objection. 7

While the terminal hooks did better protect the workman's hands against being out by the end oi the spring wire when he pushed his fingers against the springs, they created, on the other hand, a worse hazard to the workman in pulling the waste. If in'reaching into a mass oi. waste to pull a porti n of it apart, he engaged his finger.

in the interior of the spring, the pulling brought the raw and narbed end of the wire of themturned hook'terminal directly against his finger.

Another objection to the terminal hooksit was found was that whenever one spring became interengaged with another and it was sought to pull them apart, the two hooks would interlock. This made it diflicult to pull the waste apart at the desired places. Often a number of springs would thus be hooked together into a long chain of springs. v

A third objection experienced in use of waste filled with the terminal hooked springs was that while the hooks did serve the purpose of anchoring the spring in the waste, they served that purpose too well. The hooks would engage a very sizeable bundle of strands of waste, and these oil'ered such resistance to pulling the springfilled waste apart that the operation of detaching a predesired amount of spring-filled waste from a larger supply of waste was very inconvenient and often accomplished only at the expense of exercising enough pull so that the spring was stretched out beyond its elastic limit, and thereby permanently stretched out of proper shape to serve the primary purpose of a compression spring to preserve resilience for the packing.

These three objections which developed in the use of the terminally hooked springs of Ripley Patent No. 1,542,098 were not merely objections in themselves, but the objections were of such a nature that one would aggravate the others. For example, the hooks so firmly anchored the spring in the waste that if the workmans fingers engaged the interior of a spring in pulling out a smaller body of waste from a supply, the anchorage created such a resistance that he had to pull that much harder with his finger and therefore the sharp end of the wire was pushed endwise against his fi ger with that much more force. And the tendency of the springs to hook themselves together in long chainsgave the chain that much more anchorage in the waste and required still more pull to separate some waste, and consequently still more pressure of the raw end of the spring against the workman's fingers.

In addition to these three objections discussed,

there was a further objection that the hookedends of the springs caught not only the work- I man's fingers, but caught on parts of equipment,

containers, etc., in which the spring-filled waste was placed or through which it passed. One such equipment is the vats into which the springfilled waste is immersed to be soaked with 011. They often have screen bottoms for draining the oil, and the hooks would become engaged in the screens. It is a common practice to reclaim waste, including spring-filled waste, by dissolving out the old oil, cleaning the waste, and conditioning it for reuse without attempting to remove the springs and re-embed them. The hooked spring ends caught in the conveyors, screens, plate edges and other parts of reclamation equipment.

With this background in mind, the objects of the present invention include forming the spring terminals into such a shape thatrthe ends of the wire cannot be engaged by the workmans fingers and thereby complete safety is assured; a hooking anchorage into the waste is preserved but limited to probable engagement of only one, two or three strands of waste which can be broken by a mild pull on the spring well within its elastic limits; the anchorage in the waste is substantially a two-way anchorage instead of merely a one-way anchorage as with the hook terminal; the ready entrance of the end of the spring into the waste is preserved-or even improvedwhen the spring is threaded into the layer of waste in manufacture; the springs are precluded from hooking themselves together in such a manner that they will not readily separate under mild pull; the possibility of the spring terminals catching in screening, or other parts of equipment with which they come in contact is very greatly reduced, as compared with the straight ended spring or the hook ended spring previously mentioned; and the terminal shape is such that .the instrumentalities (tool or die member) by which the terminal is shaped may be brought from without radially toward the axis of the helical spring to engage the terminal of the wire and may be manipulated to shape the terminal,all without being unduly confined by the space between convolutions, or the diameter of the helical spring, and without interferingwith the spiral path which the wire follows in being shaped into completed springs.

The following, together with further objects, features, and advantages of our: invention, are set forth in the following description of a specific embodiment thereof illustrated in the following drawing wherein:

Fig. 1 is a cross-section of a journal box showing our improved spring-filled waste employed as a packing therein;

Fig. 2 is a front elevation of one of the springs;

Fig. 3 is a side elevation thereof;

Fig. 4 is a plan thereof; and

Fig. 5 is an enlarged detail of the terminal of a spring showing a very limited number of strands of waste caught therein.

As illustrative of the practical use of our spring-filled waste, we have shown in Fig. 1 a

journal box l having a journal brass H and wedge l 2 therefor, the former engaging the crown of the journal [3 of a car axle I4.

Pursuant to established custom, a twisted strip l of the packing material is placed adjacent the otherwise open space between the end of the journal box and the under side of the journal, unless some more formal dirt and packing guard be employed. 4

The spring-filled packing material, as shown in the journal box, consists of a body of waste ll-inexpensive cotton waste will suflice-having embedded therein a multiplicity of springs It. The springs [8 are distributed fairly evenly throughout the waste, but the springs themselves are not disposed in any particular position or pattern; they are variously arranged. There are, however, enough springs per unit of volume so that, even though they are not uniformly positioned, an adequate number of them will be so positioned as to press the packed waste resiliently against the journal surfaces'of the axle, and they and the other springs will serve to hold the packing expanded to the elimination of objectionably hard compactness which would impair the capillary capacity of the waste.

The waste is impregnated with a lubricating oil, which impregnation is preferably done after the springs are embedded therein.

The springs I8, which are preferably formed from brass spring wire, are in helical form and consist, in the preferred embodiment illustrated.

of substantially two convolutions with a wide lead such that the length of a convolution approximates the diameter of the helix. For railway journal box use, a helical spring an inch and a half in diameter and a little less than three inches long has proved very satisfactory.

Each spring I8 is provided at each end with a terminal eye IS. The plane of each eye i9 is in a plane tangential to the imaginary cylinder in which the helix is described, as will be seen from Fig. 4. As a corollary to that relationship, the plane of the eye itself is in a plane normal to the radius from the axis of the helix.

The eyes are turned away from the body of the helix rather than being turned in toward the center. The eye is not bisected by the line of the adjoining reach of the helix, but the adjacent reach of the helix extends tangentially into the eye. This disposition of the eyes is of considerable advantage in use because it precludes two springs being hooked together end-to-end, if their ends :lgould happen to come into overlapping relation- Each eye [9 is left with a gap 20, rather than being fully closed. The gap 20 is smaller than the diameter of the wire, which precludes another spring becoming anchored in the eye, which might otherwise permit some of the springs in the manipulation of the spring-filled waste forming themselves into chains. The gap 20 is, however, large enough to pass strands ll of the waste, as shown in Fig. 5. The gap 20 is suiiiciently restricted so that by and large in the original embedding of the springs in the waste and in the subsequent manipulation of the spring-filled waste, it is not likely that more than two to four strands of the waste will be passed through the gap 20 and caught within the eye.

The terminal of the wire which forms the eye is preferably provided with a barb 2|, which can be formed as an incident to the cutting of the wire. This barb 2| is calculated to catch one of the strands as at 22-especially one of the fatter, fuzzier and more yarn-like strands, rather than the smaller thread-like strands of the waste. This tends to anchor the barb to such a strand and thereby somewhat augment the anchorage of the terminal of the wire to an immediate body of the waste by the strands which are caught within the eye. At the same time, the barb, by catching a strand such as shown at 22, serves the further useful purpose of somewhat blocking the gap 20 to minimize the likelihood of more strands passing into the eye and becoming anchored therein. And the presence of the barb also tends to re-v strain those strands which have entered the eye from backing out from the eye.

It will be understood that in our spring-filled packing no fixed and predetermined number of strands are necessarily going to find theirway into any given eye or that necessarily the barb 2| of each eye is going. to engage and catch on a strand. The functionsof the eyes and the barbs are to be considered rather on the basis of statistical probabilities and averages. In general, most of the eyes will embrace one or more strands of the waste to anchor that end of its spring to an immediate body or region of waste. And yet it is very unlikely that more than three or four strands will thus become anchored in the eye. Thus, in general, each end of each spring will be fairly well anchored in the waste; but not anchored by so mangstrands but that the strands embraced in the eye can be broken, or pulled loose from the rest of the waste, when a body of waste is pulled away from a supply of the waste, without having to exert so much pull on the eye as to flex the spring beyond its elastic limit, or otherwise make it diflicult fora portion oi the spring-filled waste to be pulled away from a body of it.

The result is that once the springs are embedded in the waste with a rather uniform distribution, the springs are sufficiently anchored to the waste so that that distribution is fairly well maintained without the tendency of the springs to drop out or become segregated. And this is true despite the spring-filled waste being subjected to repeated alternations of use in journal boxes and reclamation.

The very few strands which enter the gap 20 of an eye, and so serve to anchor the eye, are not apt to pass out again in ordinary handling and use of the spring-filled waste. Relative movement of the spring and such strands tending to shift the strands back to the gap 20 tend to mat or jamb together at the throat of the gap. These jammed strands, aided by their diverse directions, will thus to a large extent block their own exit from the e e.

The raw ends of the wire, and any barbs they may carry, are well protected from contacting the hands of an operator, because they are disposed close to and guarded by the wire adjacent the eyes. And yet the barbed ends of the wire are made to serve a very useful purpose in their coaction with the waste. If a workmans finger becomes hooked into a spring in pulling it, the spring, with its generous lead, will be pulled off from the finger without the finger even contacting the eye, since the eye is disposed away from the surface of the wire along which the finger would contact the wire. In a somewhat similar manner, when a smaller body of waste is being pulled from a larger supply, any waste wvhich may lie between the convolution is easily parted from the spring under gentle pull with only those very few strands which pass through the eye requiring pulling out or breaking to complete the severance.

A method of making 'the springs and embeddying them in the waste, and an apparatus for carrying out the method, are disclosed and claimed in our copending application, Serial No. 382,374, filed March 8, 1941, on Method and apparatus for making spring packing.

We claim:

1. Spring-filled packing of the class described comprising a body of waste and a multiplicity of generally isolated springs embedded therein and distributed therethrough, each spring being a relatively short but quite open helix of spring wire, each end of the wire being turned axially away from the body of the spring into a small terminal eye disposed substantially in a plane at a normal to a radius from the axis of the helix, with the end edge of the wire disposed opposite, and in close fending proximity to, the wire at the other end of the eye.

2. Spring-filled packing of the class described comprising a body of waste and a multiplicity of generally isolated springs embedded therein and distributed therethrough, each spring being a relatively short but quite open helix of spring wire, each end of the wire being turned axially away from the body of the spring into a small terminal eye disposed substantially in a plane at a normal to a radius from the axis of the helix, with the end edge of the wire terminating short of closed leaving a gap too small to pass the wire of a like spring but large enough to pass strands of the waste, a relatively large number of the eyes having but a few intermediate reaches of strands of the waste passing therethrough anchoring ends of the springs to local portions of the body of waste, substantially as described.

3. Spring-filled packing according to claim 2, wherein the ends of the wire have barbs for engaging and tending to hold larger waste strands at the eye gaps.

4. Spring packing waste consisting, of bulk waste having embedded therein and distributed therethrough in random position a multiplicity of separate three-dimensionally and openly spiraled springs of spring wire stock, the springs having small terminal eyes formed of integral end reaches of the wire, the eyes being a little short of closed, leaving gaps too small to pass like wire but large enough to pass strands of the waste, the eyes, by and large, having a very few typical strands of the waste passing through them-enough to have a substantial efiect in anchoring the springs to local zones of the waste but not more strands than can conveniently be broken or pulled loose to release the eye within the elastic limit of the spring.

5. Spring-filled waste packing of the class described having distributed therein springs, each consisting of a helix of spring wire, having convolution spacing in the order of the helix diameter and axial length in the order of twice the helix diameter, with each end of the wire turned axially outwardly of the helix into a small terminal eye and the end edge of the wire positioned directly opposite the wire at the other end of the eye whereby the wire constitutes a guard for the end edge, one eye being a little short of closed leaving a gap too small readily to pass like wire but large enough to pass typical waste strands, the other eye having a like or greater degree of closure.

6. Spring-filled waste packingof the class described according to claim 5, wherein the eyes lie substantially in planes which are at normals to radii from the axis of the helix '7. Spring-filled waste packing of the class described having distributed therein springs, each consisting of a three-dimensional spiral of spring wire having wide convolution spacing, each end of the wire being conformed into a small terminal eye for the spring, and the end edge of the wire being positioned directly opposite a reach of wire at the eye whereby the wire constitutes a guard for the end edge, one eye being a little short of closed leaving a gap too small pass a like spring but large enough to pass some 0! the strands of the material into the eye, with but a few or the strands passing through each eye, whereby locally to anchor the associate 5 spring in the mass.

CHARLES 'I'.RIPLEY. WALTER M. GIBBS. 

